We are earthy hermits now

We’ve hiked high into the mountains 

Without setting a single foot outdoors

 

Laying down the beaten burdens on our backs

We’ve swapped them now for lighter packs

 To better tread the untrod tracks; we’re on the hunt

Looking for a new home though we haven’t left the old

But because the outside is forbidden

We build another home inside our weary walls

And the home within the house 

Has no walls at all

Just a mud-brick oven with a mountain view

 

We are hermits of a hermit planet

Cramped inside suburban bricks for contemplative purposes

Trekking through the mountain mist inside our minds

Keeping eyes alert for the green-leafed way to Eden

We whiff the path as heady with the scent of herb and spice

 

So we’ve set up camp around a firepit and mud-brick oven

Our hair is longer, kids curlier and our thoughts fossick among the hills

We’re getting dirty, climbing trees and writing our own cookbooks

We bake hearty bread with yeast and sit to watch it rise

 

Every night the fire warms our hands and sparks our minds

We debate with smiles which recipe to wrangle next

To give our tongues some love

To give our loved ones love

To give our hands some giving to do

To everyone with open hands

 

And every night on the power of full bellies

We send out smoke signals with seasoned fumes

They signal makeshift recipes for the remaking of society

You see, from our mountain seclusion we’re plotting a revolution

A new breed of daily bread

And the bricks are heating up

 

We are hermits of a hermit planet

Smoke signals are the only way to give for now

But down the street we see through glass windows in brick houses

There’s a pulse of firelight

And by that flame we know they must be cooking something good to send us

From their mud-brick oven with a mountain view

 

–

4/20

© Nichola Tatyana

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